Sophisticated Thin Film Coating Technology

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) was originally brought into large scale use by the semiconductor industry. Today this technology is applied to a variety of applications across many diverse industries.

ALD is an advanced thin film coating method which is used to fabricate ultra-thin, highly uniform and conformal material layers. ALD uses sequential, self-limiting, and surface-controlled gas phase chemical reactions to achieve control of film growth in the nanometer or sub-nanometer thickness regime. Due to the film formation mechanism, the gases will not react until they touch the surface. This means the film grows by consecutive atomic layers “up” from the surface. ALD film is dense and free of cracks, defects and pinholes. Its thickness, along with structural and chemical characteristics, can be precisely controlled on an atomic scale.

The ALD process is also digitally repeatable, and it can be performed at relatively low temperatures. This offers the possibility to construct not only single material layers but also doped, mixed, or graded layers and nanolaminates. Low process temperature on the other hand allows coating of sensitive materials also such as plastics and polymers. The list of ALD materials is wide, ranging from oxides, nitrides, fluorides, carbides, and sulfides to ternary compounds, metals (including noble ones), hybrid materials and polymers.